


Appendix D: Lost Scenes From Junior Year

by btvsp2082



Series: Between Seacrest and Revello [9]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 09:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2383376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/btvsp2082/pseuds/btvsp2082
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This first scene is post-S6 episode, "Once More With Feeling" of BtVS.</p>
<p>Again, nothing owned by me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Broadway Babies They Ain't

**Author's Note:**

> This first scene is post-S6 episode, "Once More With Feeling" of BtVS.
> 
> Again, nothing owned by me.

On the front porch of the Summers' home, Buffy and Veronica sat in the swing. Mulling over events of the last few days, they were trying not to at the same time. Looking at each other, they immediately looked away. They wanted so much to will the memories--and melodies--banished forever.

Veronica dared speak first. "That was..."

"Life in Sunnydale," came Buffy's all-encompassing answer.

"Whoa no, uh-uh. That was life in Sunnydale, detoured through the Twilight Zone, with a brief stopover along the Outer Limits. Well-blended into an unholy batch of Rocky Horror/Moulin Rouge-laced Kool-Aid."

"That demon made us drink. Who tap-danced," Buffy added on. "My ‘Scale of Weirdness’ even went up a notch. I want it to go back down."

"A notch? Try again. The buckle's gone bust, baby," Veronica exaggerated for comedic effect. "And what you meant to say was, 'up an octave.'" She mimed striking a drum. "Ba-Dump."

"I sang." Buffy still didn't believe it. "I _sang_. There's no forgetting spell in the _world_."

"You and your magic words. Like 'please.' Why say that Hell-mouthful?" Veronica swatted the air dismissively. "All we need is a mallet, and a bottomless jug of the best moonshine an attractive second cousin can buy."

A beat, and then Buffy decided--

"I get knocked out first. Then you." But something didn't sit right. "Maybe a third person oughta help; who’s jugless. What if our aim was drunk aim?"

Veronica considered. "What if this hypothetical third-party sported a trench coat? To conceal a camera--or worse--a sixty-year old birthday suit in desperate need of dry cleaning? With us being seven sheets to the wind..."

"Trench-coated people are automatically off-list."

Buffy flushed, hit with a horrifying memory of her high school self in a trench coat. But then she grinned, remembering something significantly more recent. A tune. It wasn’t originally hers, but she hummed the chorus to, "Why So Camera Shy?"

Veronica socked her in the arm. "You said something about wanting to meet 'Mr. Mallet' first? I'll gladly oblige."

"What, it's catchy," Buffy argued. "In that way where you’re glad Eighties music died and didn’t turn into a vampire."

"He doesn’t know it yet, but Xander's smack dab in the middle of my warpath. And he won’t until I strike," Veronica swore.

A car pulled into the driveway then. Keith Mars got out, carrying duffel bag. He was just getting back in town. Lucky him.

"Dad, hey," greeted Veronica, vice grip on Buffy’s thigh.

"How was the case?" Buffy tried to sound normal.

"Too long," he answered, walking up the stairs. "I miss anything?"

"Life in Sunnydale," Buffy smiled at him.

"What's to miss?" Veronica asked rhetorically.


	2. G-ddamn Garden Gnomes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene(s) takes place during the S6 episode, "Seeing Red" of BtVS.
> 
> And as far as stories that take place within the TV series' timelines, this is the last thing I wrote.
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed. :)

Veronica ran her hands through her hair for about the sixth time, standing against the wall. Then, again, she stepped away and paced her own private corner of the hospital waiting room, tapping her fingers together nervously. She looked at the double doors for the twentieth time in the past five minutes. She wouldn't lose it, she wouldn't lose it...

Willow came over from where she'd been sitting on the chairs, Tara following. "Veronica--"

Veronica cut her off. "No offense, Willow, but…go away."

Tara took her girlfriend by the shoulders. "C'mon, honey."

"I was just trying to..." Willow wanted to explain herself.

"She knows."

Veronica remembered hearing. It happened too fast for her to see. Everything had happened too fast lately. Her dad's death, his funeral...Buffy's getting shot in the backyard.

BLAM. One second, not shot; the next, shot. On the ground.

It was time to compulsively run her hands through her hair once more. Her dad, now Buffy? From a gun? Because of that misogynistic piece of shit? No. _No_. She wouldn't lose it. How long had it been? Were surgeries supposed to last this long?

She sank to the ground and cupped fists in front of her mouth.

"Xander pickin' up the kid?"

Veronica looked up at Faith, who came from...somewhere. The smell of cigarette smoke gave a clue.

"Don’t know; I guess." She noted Faith’s wrapped hand. "How is it?"

Faith's eyes darkened. "Shouldn'ta held back."

Veronica closed hers, saw the images behind her lids, and opened them to stop seeing. "Not what I meant.”

Faith stretched out her fingers. "Said I held back, didn’t I?"

He was here too. Warren. If he had to be breathing, hopefully it was through a tube.

They were both alone with themselves for a few minutes after that when Faith uttered, wide-eyed, "Fuck. No fucking way."

Sometimes the “slayer connection” blew. She felt gut-punched.

Veronica was on her feet, panicked. "What? _Faith_."

The answer she didn't want, but got anyway?

"She's dead."

 

________

 

_~The Summers’ Residence, Several Hours Ago~_

 

_"Before, they just used to be why I boycotted Travelocity," said Veronica as she and Buffy searched the backyard for more camera-packing garden gnomes, and hidden cameras in general. "Now I have an even better reason."_

_"I wasn't imagining jetpacks, was I?" Buffy asked, poking the grass with a stick. "You saw too, didn’t you?"_

_"Much as I think you, snug in straps, would be dead sexy...that's a big 10-4. Warren's no 'Rocketeer,'” Veronica confirmed that her girlfriend still gripped sane reality. “Don’t wanna call it too early, but it’s looking all clear.”_

_Buffy sighed in relief. “Good. This was getting weird.”_

_“Yeah, that’s my fault. Watching you jab the earth the way you do stirs up these...feelings.” Veronica flashed an “oops” smile. “But I’ll still take them over rage and debilitating grief.”_

_Must’ve been the others’ rare day off._

_With an understanding, supportive smile, Buffy squeezed Veronica against her as they started walking toward the back porch. “I’m smelling Italian.”_

_“How’d we live without a ‘Tara’?” Veronica questioned._

_Tara had kind of taken care of them all once Keith died. With the Council recalling Giles to England after Glory was stopped (figuring that if he’d produced the longest surviving slayer in history, other watchers would benefit from his experience), she kept the house in order. No one expected her to when they asked her to move in; they just didn’t want her living alone on campus._

_“I microwaved, you baked. Sometimes there was scooping,” remembered Buffy. “Mostly we ordered. From mostly phones.”_

_“Ever see a Snickerdoodle or Papa John’s menu again...stand clear. Nobody likes me when I’m angry,” Veronica said, looking toward the back door. “If we’re gonna eat tonight, we better pray that cooking while smelling that smell is no aphrodisiac.”_

_Willow was in the kitchen with their self-appointed chef. After fall semester, she did what Buffy and Veronica had done a year earlier. She packed up her Hearst-earned college credits and transferred them to UC Sunnydale._

_She transferred herself here, because here was Tara. She was so witch-whipped. Since late last summer officially._

_The house was a lesbitastic place._

_Buffy halted again. “God, what if they are?”_

_“Xander makes his entrance soon, I know what he’d say,” grinned Veronica, and was discouraged by a head shake. “But_ we’ll _say ‘get a room’ for the hundredth time, and when we do, remember to specify--“_

_Warren Mears’ voice interrupted their conversation. “You think you can just do that to me? That I’d let you get away with it? Think again.”_

_The girls both turned, unprepared to see him standing there. Let alone standing there with a gun. Buffy reacted instinctively, protectively, and shoved Veronica down._

_BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM._

_His aim was wild. An upstairs window took a bullet. A tree. A slayer._

_Backup was the first one out of the house. He flew into the yard barking viciously, and leapt at the intruder on his property. His paws held Warren down, all his weight behind them, while he snarled and growled right above the murderer’s face._

_Veronica picked herself up and immediately crawled to a prone Buffy. Eyes were open in shock, but Buffy said nothing. The shot was real close to...Buffy’s shirt. It had blood. Buffy’s blood._

_Willow and Tara were next to rush out._

_Veronica looked over at them. “911._ Yesterday _!”_

_As Tara went to call, Faith pushed past her and found the subdued Warren. She charged over and kicked the gun away, the look in her eyes scaring Backup off. She bent down, pulled Warren up by the shirt collar, and started letting loose on his face._

_Willow ran to Buffy and Veronica, and seeing her best friend like that, she couldn’t keep from crying. “Buffy? Oh my god, nonono. Buffy!”_

_Veronica was by Buffy’s head, cradling it in her hands and lap. She couldn’t deal with crying right now._

_Sharply she said, “Stop her.”_

_Willow was somewhere between pissed and perplexed. “Stop...?”_

_“Faith. Stop Faith. Quick.”_

_Willow witnessed the other slayer going apeshit, but just before she got there, Faith stopped herself. Jumped off, defensively showing her bloody-knuckled hands. Most of the red wasn’t hers._

_“Stay the hell with me, Buffy. Got it?” Veronica ordered, her eyes boring into the hazel she was trying to will to remain open._

_“You listening? Don’t go_ anywhere _. The ambulance is gonna pull up any minute, and if you want the pleasure of my company in back, keep that gaze focused right here.”_

_She pointed at her own face. “But why would you wanna gaze anywhere else? And you’re doing awesome so far. Really. Oughta be able to shake off a bullet, c’mon. Wasn’t even that big.”_

_Though she smiled, her voice was breaking. “Any minute.”_

_By the time Tara said it was coming, Veronica already heard sirens in the distance._

________

 

It was six hours later, surgery still ongoing.

Moments after Faith’s announcement, Veronica barreled through the double-doors and fought through security to catch a glimpse of the doctors before she was hauled away. A few minutes after that, a nurse appeared and explained that while Buffy’s heart had stopped, the surgeon manually got it beating again.

But it would be a while yet--the bullet hit dangerously close to that pretty crucial organ.

With that good news, Veronica calmed down some, though Faith would get nothing but radio silence for the rest of the day. Veronica had been in her corner ever since, not even speaking to the police detectives who wanted her statement.

The only other time she let someone in was when Dawn brought her a Kit Kat from the vending machine. But Buffy’s sister immediately went back to sit with everyone else. In six hours, Veronica had taken maybe half a bite.

At six hours and fifty-two minutes, when the exhausted doctor finally came out, his face was the opposite of grim.

“We’re moving her to the ICU for a little while just to be sure, but...she’s a strong young woman.”

Buffy’s friends and family happily cried tears. Xander cracked jokes. They all hugged Dawn. The usual relieved reactions.

Veronica though? She wasn’t relieved until she was alone later in Buffy’s hospital room, seeing--and holding--the woman she loved in living color. She might’ve cried then.


End file.
